Crosswind #2 Review

Writer: Gail Simone / Artist: Cat Staggs / Image Comics Remember last month, on the Crosswind #1 review, when I said this comic would get better? You thought I was full of crap — I know you thought that, it’s cool — but I wasn’t. This comic got better. In this issue, the action gets sharper, the tension ratchets up a notch, and the art achieves perfection. I mean that, Cat Staggs’ art is *perfect.* All comics are told in words and images, but in this one, the art has to convey one person’s personality in another person’s body, and it does that perfectly.

You can look at any given image and tell if it is June in Case’s body or Case in June’s body. The posture, hand gestures, facial expressions, every detail is carried over and translated into a new shape. Combined with the visceral mundane grossness of everyone else, they are all the kind of normal people we know and despise, the pages pop with meaning and weight. The story here is told in character, not setting, and the art supports that 100%. Then there’s Simone’s work on the plot. In this issue, both Case and June get a call from a mysterious person, Vox, who seems to take credit for the body-switching, saying that they want to teach each of our protagonists “a little grace” by challenging them to get out of the situation they are now in.

Each of them does get out of it by using their real life skills in new settings. June’s ability to clean house and think fast scrubs a murder scene better than any “cleaner” ever. Cas…